I’M GONNA BE ON TV

24042010

In my capacity as your guide through the madness that is the election campaign I put myself on the front line for you all, jumped on the grenade by agreeing to be in the same room as William Hague, and attended Question Time in Greenwich.

QT Sudio

I was required to get there at 18:00 to watch the leaders debate before hand, this didn’t start until 20:00 so I stuffed myself with BBC cheese and pickle sandwiches for two hours. Then into the studio with approx 150-200 others to watch round 2 of the debates on Sky.

The biggest laugh of the evening from the crowd went to David Cameron’s outstanding impression of Nick Clegg (Rory Bremner recently complained about how difficult it was to do an impression of Clegg, maybe he should go round to Tory HQ for lessons). Brown got a great dig in early comparing the other two to his children arguing at bath time. Cameron then got beaten up by Clegg on the question of Europe; he couldn’t defend accusations that he was siding with the far right parties in Brussels. He did have his moment to shine when he accused Brown and Labour of lying in their election leaflets when claiming the Tories were going to make basic cuts to the NHS. The last laugh of the evening went to Clegg, when discussing deporting illegal immigrants he said the government can’t deport them if they don’t know where they come from.

Cooper

Happily I was spared the usual nonsense of all the parties claiming they won the debate, I had to rehearse for my appearance on national television. And that’s what we did for the next hour and a half. Mock panelists asked mock questions by an audience getting all giddy at the thought of being on television.

Then the man himself appeared, David Dimbelby, he took a quick audience poll to see who won the debate and the majority went with Clegg. Sir Menzies Campbell could be spotted in the wings giving a thumbs up, to join him on the panel were Yvette Cooper, the work and pension secretary, ElfynLlwyd, Welsh fellow if you hadn’t guessed already, leader of Plaid Cymru, Dame Ann Leslie, former journalist for The Daily Mail and William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, who is surprisingly tall and, as we were to learn before going on air, practices judo.